Author’s note: The basis of the Beaverton School District’s mentoring program is to establish trusting, confidential relationships with mentees. This blog post was written and shared here with the permission of the teacher.
"Buenos días," greeted the veteran third-grade teacher as the students piled into the classroom. The smiling kids entered bright-eyed, excited to learn on this cloudy Monday morning. Upon seeing my mentee and me sitting at a round table in the back of the classroom, they stopped and stared, wondering who these two strangers were.
My mentee Kelly, a Spanish two-way immersion teacher in third grade, was ready for a day of learning. As part of our mentoring program in Beaverton, Oregon, we arrange for our new teachers to observe master teachers in the field. Kelly, a first-year educator, requested that she see teachers using language supports for students new to the language they are learning. Our first visit was to a third-grade Spanish immersion class at a neighboring school.
After putting away their backpacks, the students eagerly sat on the carpet, and the teacher started a lesson on making inferences while reading. She directed the students to look at an anchor chart, written in Spanish, explaining the process. She modeled a few inferences with a picture book using the chart and then paired the students to practice making their own inferences with each other. The teacher asked a few students to share out. Kelly took notes on everything, all written in Spanish.
As a white monolingual teacher, I worried that the day’s observation would be lost on me. I lament the fact that I speak only English. As in many school systems across the country, Beaverton is increasingly diversifying in terms of race and culture. I hoped this experience would be rich for Kelly, but I wondered if I would gain much from it, not speaking the language. Turns out I was totally wrong.
The inference lesson looked like lessons I'd taught my own third-grade class, and this lesson was delivered in the first language for many of the students in the room. I knew exactly what the teacher was teaching by the intentional scaffolds she used throughout the lesson, despite my lack of knowledge of Spanish. Clearly, her students benefited from these multiple approaches.
After watching a writing lesson with similar supports and language use, Kelly mused, "It felt like I was watching a well-oiled machine. The teacher clearly and intentionally scaffolded the learning, designed for student success."
We closed out our morning in the Spanish classroom and, after a quick lunch, headed into Portland for our second observation of the day in a third-grade Japanese immersion classroom. While I was excited to experience a second foreign language, I wondered if Kelly would glean as much from our afternoon now that she would experience instruction in a language she didn't know.
What we saw was impressive! Most of the 25 or so students in the room were white, and only two had Japanese heritage. All of them were new to Japanese coming into the school, and by third grade, they were fluent and comfortable using Japanese. The instructor taught primarily in Japanese and only used English when talking with Kelly and me.
The teacher began her literacy lesson with her students on the carpet, reading a picture book about the 2011 tsunami in Japan. During the storytelling, the teacher modeled different types of reading responses, and the students turned and shared their thoughts orally in Japanese. After the teacher finished the book, students returned to their desks to write their thoughts.
Next, the teacher used a structured protocol written on a poster with illustrations, laying out the steps for the students to share their writing. Kids engaged in these conversations wholeheartedly. Then the students completed a "gallery walk" in which they roamed around the room looking at everyone's writing and shared their favorite examples afterward. Students used both oral and written Japanese constantly in authentic, high-engagement activities.
Kelly reflected on her experience in the Japanese classroom: "It was so nice to see the teacher constantly encouraging kids with a positive, optimistic and welcoming demeanor. By using sentence frames and specific language supports, it creates a comfortable atmosphere where learning is truly supported."
Kelly and I discussed some of the support we saw in these two highly successful classrooms, and three stand out.
Use of visuals, combined with words, for processes and speaking
Not knowing the language in either classroom, I began to look for supports to help me with the lessons. The use of pictures and visuals was essential to my inclusion. Without those supports, I would not have understood what was going on. They clearly supported the students as they used their new languages.
Modeling of the skills or language
We saw extensive modeling by the teachers before students were asked to produce anything. The teachers made their modeling explicit and tied it in with visuals to support learner development.
Structures to use the language verbally either with a peer or small group
Each teacher intentionally used protocols or planned structures for the students to use their language. And each teacher tied in expectations for speaking and listening, allowing students ample time to practice in a safe environment.
As we were leaving the Japanese classroom, Kelly commented, "I just wish that every pre-service educator would experience learning in a new language, whether it be for a day or a week. They would experience a range of emotions and the constant unfamiliarity that our English language learners encounter on a daily basis. It would allow new teachers to walk a little bit in their English learners' zapatos."
Hiller is a mentor to first- and second-year teachers in Oregon and a former member of the Teaching Tolerance Advisory Board.
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